


Hidden Beneath Petals

by HapSky



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Chocolate, Flowers, Fluff, Hydrangea, Language of Flowers, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Shance Flower Exchange 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 19:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14551320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapSky/pseuds/HapSky
Summary: Lance, the florist, confesses his feelings to Shiro with self made chocolate and Shiro, the chocolatier, answers with a flower...





	Hidden Beneath Petals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaake-art](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=anaake-art).



> Written for the [Shance Flower Exchange 2018](https://shanceflowerexchange.tumblr.com/) as a gift for [anaake-art](http://anaake-art.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I had so much fun researching all kinds of flowers, and though I struggled with editing, I really enjoyed writing this little piece. I hope you'll like it!

It’s been a long day for Shiro. His legs ache, his back too. He’s somewhat tired, but excitement keeps him awake. Lance has asked him over, had said he’d prepare a surprise for him. The request itself was a surprise already, it was usually Shiro who invited Lance to visit him. Well, it was just convenient. Shiro had a nice apartment, a nice couch, a nice kitchen, even though Lance was the better cook in it. Lance on the other hand shared his apartment, their couch was old and smelled weird, the so called kitchen was small. On his way Shiro wonders what Lance has planned for him that was so special that he’d kick his roommate out for it. It could be something cool and fun, but with Lance, also something crazy of even scary.

However, what awaits Shiro is something completely unexpected. He knocks, the door creaks open a bit, and with Lance’s “Come in, come in!” he does as told--and is greeted with the smell of chocolate. It’s not as if Shiro never had smelled chocolate before, after all, he works as a chocolatier. But his job is the exact reason for his baffled expression. Why would Lance make chocolate, when Shiro could just have brought some from work?

“Lance?” he calls out and makes his way to the kitchen. Lance stirs molten chocolate, while also trying to fill it into tiny forms. It’s not only the sweets that are decorated with all sorts of chocolate, though. Lance’s face looks just as disastrous as the rest of the room does. The sight makes Shiro chuckle.

“What are you doing?” Shiro asks amused.

“The first batch is ready,” Lance says, “This stuff is way more complicated than it looks?” He looks up at Shiro and gestures to his work. “You always make it look so easy…”

Shiro shakes his head. “Everything is easy that you’re good at.”

Lance laughs, but he doesn’t argue back. Shiro is right after all. “I’m sorry I didn’t finish in time, I fucked up and… uh… kinda had to run to buy more of this evil sticky sweet stuff,” he apologises, while also scolding the chocolate with a glare. “No matter what I do, it always ends up everywhere, Shiro. Everywhere!”

This time it’s Shiro’s turn to laugh. “I know,” he agrees with a smile. “Then, why are you making chocolate? If I had known you wanted some I’d have made some for you,” he asks, scooping up some stray blobs and quickly stuffing them in his mouth. Just because he works with the ingredients all day long doesn’t mean he gets to eat the end product.

“Exactly!” Lance sighs and puts the second batch into the fridge. “It would have been just chocolate, then. Some chocolate you could have anytime you want. I wanted it to be special!” He swiftly cleans up the small table while Shiro sits down on one of the two old creaky chairs.

When Lance prepares the first batch, arranges them on a plate and puts them in front of Shiro for him to try, Shiro blurts out, “Why special?”

Shiro is intelligent and smart, but he’s also honest and wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s why most of his friends call him things like cute and adorable instead of a musclehead. He doesn’t mean to make Lance uneasy and nervous with his question, he simply didn’t think that far. He wondered, and wanted to know, so he asked.

Lance sits down and nudges the plate. “At least try them, okay?” he says, and gnawing on his lips, he adds, “Though I don’t know how good they actually are…”

Shiro tries one of the striped cubes. It tastes like chocolate, but that was to be expected. He can make out the bitter taste of dark chocolate, as well as some nougat. He wouldn’t have combined those two, and the quality of the chocolate used isn’t as high end as the ones they use at his work, but Lance fits the always almost broke student cliché, so he doesn’t think bad of him for choosing the cheaper chocolate brands. All in all, it doesn’t taste bad, and to Lance’s delight, Shiro eats a second one right after his first.

“...and?” Lance wants to know after Shiro wordlessly eats a third.

“Do you know that feeling when something that shouldn’t be better is actually better than what’s supposedly the best?” Shiro laughs and explains, “They’re not bad, but also not… good? And still, I like them best, and I have had my fair share of chocolates in my life.”

Lance pouts, but he knows Shiro only means well, means it as a compliment. So Lance smiles and eats one of the cubes as well. “Special, because…” he starts, then blushes and avoids Shiro’s gaze. “...it’s chocolate or flowers, and well, I thought flowers would be lame, because, you know, I work in a flower shop. But I thought, maybe, if I could impress you with self made chocolates? That’d be cool…”

Shiro eats a fourth cube, and he is smart, so he has a feeling what this is about. Still, he wants to know, so he asks, “Chocolate or flowers?”

Lance breathes in deeply, then stares directly into Shiro’s very soul, and says, “I want to ask you to be my boyfriend.”

“With chocolate?” Shiro hears himself say before he can stop the words.

Lance, though, Lance seems to understand and to forgive him, he laughs and confirms, “Yeah, with chocolate.”

 

Chocolate or flowers, Lance had said, and honestly, it fits them perfectly. Now all that’s left to do is answer Lance with flowers, and to not disappoint. Shiro wants to be with him, he really does. So the next day, after work, he visits a flower shop different from the one Lance works at. He isn’t exactly happy about just having to buy the flower, but he can’t make a plant, and he still has to pick the right one, after all. Standing in the small but cosy shop, stuffed to the brim with beautiful flowers and plants, he feels like picking is hard enough a task, though.

Hydrangea are of many different colours, but the ones Shiro ends up buying for Lance are of a deep, deep blue. Fascinated by its shade, he picks it up to hold it in the sunlight trickling into the flower shop through a row of small windows. It's early evening and though dust sparkles in the air, the windows' glass is clean and clear. The blue of the petals is a mix of a summer’s sky and an ocean hue--and Shiro thinks it's perfect.   
"The more acidity in the soil, the more vibrant the shade of the hydrangea," the flower shop girl tells Shiro and smiles at him. He stares at her, eyes wide with wonder, then nods and walks towards her, places the flower on the counter. "I'll take it." It’s perfect, Shiro thinks again, this is perfect for Lance.

 

Maybe it isn’t perfect, Shiro contemplates when he sees Lance’s torn expression. The petals still shine bright with a beautiful blue, and the hydrangea itself is healthy and undamaged. Sure, it’s not really big, and it’s not a bouquet either, but Shiro doesn’t like to gift people dead plants, so a potted one it is.

Lance sighs, and his lips shape a quivery smile. “This is your answer for yesterday, right?” he asks. There is hope, but also fear in his eyes, and a tad bit of confusion and humor. Shiro doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Yeah… You impressed me with chocolate, so I thought…” Shiro mutters. He feels uncomfortable under Lance’s intense stare, he fidgets and chuckles a shy laugh.

“Shiro,” Lance says with a firm voice, “do you have any idea about flower language?”

“Flower language?” Shiro parrots. He blinks a few times, and while he knew there would be things he couldn’t know about flowers that Lance surely must know, he didn’t exactly think it’d be anything severe, anything that could trace such a twisted grimace onto Lance’s face. “I don’t speak flower language,” is what he says in his state of confusion and light panic.

It’s dumb, and the first thing that came to his mind, and while later, he could slap himself for it, in this moment, it was what lifted all those heavy emotions from Lance’s mind. Shiro would later cringe about his words, but he wouldn’t regret them one bit.

Lance laughs, loud and unabashed, and he has to put the hydrangea down to clutch his stomach. “No,” he says when he calmed down a bit, “No, you certainly don’t. In flower language, the hydrangea can stand for gratitude and honest feelings, but also heartlessness and disinterest.”

“I’m not disinterested!” Shiro exclaims. “I’m very, very not-- that’s not-- I didn’t know that,” he says with a scowl.

“I hoped so… But then, why did you pick this one?” Lance asks and gently strokes over the blue petals.

“The more acidity in the soil, the brighter the blue,” Shiro says and takes Lance’s hand--to make Lance look at him, but also to convey that he really, definitely is very interested in what Lance asked of him. “Just like you,” he whispers and smiles, eyes full of wonder and admiration and affection. “When something gets really ugly, it’s then--then you shine the brightest, and I have no idea how, but, in the end, you somehow always save the day… I really love that about you.”

Shiro’s eyes wander from Lance to the hydrangea, and he squeezes Lance’s hand in his while saying, “Besides, blue is your colour, and those petals reminded me of you. So beautiful…”

Lance doesn’t answer, and when the silence stretches uncomfortably long, Shiro looks back to see Lance blushing, yet still staring right at him. Shiro feels the need to say something, anything, so he rushes out, “A-and now that I know, it’s gratitude, I think, because I really am grateful that I have you--and that you want to be with me! And honest feelings, of course, I always want to be honest with you, and--” Shiro stops when he feels Lance squeezing his hands back.

“I love you too,” Lance smiles and pecks Shiro’s lips. “Love the hydrangea, as well. It’s a really beautiful one!” Lance laughs and finally feels bashful enough to avoid Shiro’s eyes while admitting, “Kinda makes me proud that it reminded you of me… Makes me happy you think of me…”

Shiro brushes his fingers over Lance’s cheek, like Lance had with the petals before, and mumbles, “When I think of you, it makes me happy, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Please check out all the amazing works of the other participants of this event as well!


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